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Jihad and the Rise of Isis

The thing about terrorist attacks is that they can continue to ripple and cause damage months after having occurred.

Canadians were reminded of that painful lesson again this week when we learned that yet another young Canadian man had died fighting for the Islamic jihad in the Middle East. In the past decade, hundreds of young men, born and raised in the West, middle class, educated, with all the opportunity in the world, have decided to dedicate their abilities towards hate and death—turning their efforts towards the global Islamist jihad.

Back in November, a jihadist named Abu Abdullah Al Khorasani participated in a double suicide bombing in Iraq. He died, and took 46 other people along with him. For this act, he believed he was doing God’s will and would be rewarded in heaven. But it turns out, Abu Abdullah Al Khorasani was actually Salman Ashrafi, a Canadian raised in Calgary—a city known for cowboys and stampedes. He went to university, and held high paying analyst jobs at prestigious corporate firms in the city.

He shared an apartment with three Muslim friends, at least one of them converts. It would later turn out that one his friends would also join the jihad and die in Syria. But Ashrafi gave up everything life had to offer and chose death. And he gave his life and death to a terrorist organisation, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).